PHILADELPHIA – A trio of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has unanimously reinstated a retaliation claim from a Caucasian, ex-corrections officer allegedly fired for filing a complaint against his supervisor, who had referred to his biracial grandniece as a “little monkey.”
Third Circuit judges Thomas L. Ambro, Stephanos Bibas and Jane R. Roth Appeals ruled on July 29 that plaintiff Jeffrey Kengerski had properly pled the evidence of a hostile work environment, predicated on the connection to his grandniece and that it was sufficient to support his retaliation claim.
The case dates back to 2014, when Kengerski, who served as a Captain at the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, shared with colleagues that he and his wife were preparing to become the primary caretakers for his grandniece Jaylynn, because her mother was not able to take care of her.
Kengerski explained that his supervisor Robyn McCall, at the rank of Major, laughed when she heard the girl’s first name and asked whether she was Black. When Kengerski replied that his grandniece was biracial, McCall replied that Kengerski “will be that guy in the store with a little monkey on his hip.”
Kengerski added that after McCall made the “little monkey” remark, she began to send him text messages which contained stereotyped depictions of Black and Asian people. He later filed a complaint against McCall, which resulted in McCall being placed on leave. She resigned shortly thereafter.
Consequently, Kengerski alleged he was harassed by other Allegheny County Jail employees and then fired several months later, with the institution claiming that Kengerski had botched the handling of a sexual harassment inquiry against other employees.
In 2017, Kengerski filed suit against Allegheny County and Allegheny County Jail Warden Orlando Harper in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. After a few years of litigation, Kengerski’s lone remaining claim was retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In January 2020, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan granted Allegheny County’s motion for summary judgment.
In Ranjan’s view, because Kengerski himself is White, his belief that comments regarding Black or biracial people were directed at him was not reasonable.
However, the federal appellate bench felt differently, reversing Ranjan’s decision and remanding the case to the lower federal court.
“Title VII protects all employees from retaliation when they reasonably believe that behavior at their work violates the statute and they make a good-faith complaint. As relevant here, harassment against an employee because he associates with a person of another race, such as a family member, may violate Title VII by creating a hostile work environment. Because a reasonable person could believe that the Allegheny County Jail was a hostile work environment for Kengerski, we vacate the District Court’s grant of summary judgment,” Ambro said.
“This does not mean that Kengerski will ultimately succeed on his retaliation claim, or even that it must survive summary judgment on remand. The County claims that it fired him for an unrelated reason that is unquestionably serious: mishandling a sexual harassment claim. We therefore remand to the District Court, to consider whether Kengerski has sufficiently shown that he was fired because of his Title VII complaint.”
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit case 20-1307
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania case 2:17-cv-01048
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com